Well, I consider myself veganish, in that I avoid obvious meat, fish, fowl eggs, dairy, but I don’t stress over incidental by-products in food. If you are talking about the Mediterranean diet Dr. Mosley now recommends, I don’t see why you can’t go plant based.

You don’t need to replace anything Ronit. You don’t need to follow any recipes from this site, or the book, to do 5:2.
All you need to do is check that your calories don’t go past your Fast Day limit. Make a yummy vegan soup for fast day!
If it is too hard to work out the calories, find a recipe online that has the calories worked out already. Cheers!

Try these recipes, Ronit, either omitting the cheese or substituting a vegan equivalent:

Pizza with Vegetable Topping: 300 calories 13.3 g fat 4 g fiber 14 g protein 19 g carbs 269.3 mg Calcium PB Another winner from the Fast Diet book. The pizza shells are either whole grain wraps or corn tortillas. BE CAREFUL about the calorie and fat content when shopping! I get Herdez 8″ whole wheat fajita style tortillas. Each has 170 cal and 5 gm protein. Each person gets ONE of these pizzas. OR you could get Ole brand 6″ corn tortillas. Each of those has 65 cal and each person gets THREE AND a HALF pizzas.
1 whole wheat/grain tortilla at 170-cal [per person] 1-2 Tbsp tomato puree HINT: buy a can of puree and freeze in small portions 1 oz mozzerella, grated ½ oz mushrooms, chopped or sliced 1 ½ oz red pepper, cooked and chopped 1 oz spinach, steamed, squeezed and chopped 1 Tbsp red onion, chopped
Set the oven at 400. Place the tortilla on an ungreased baking sheet. Put dollops of tomato purée on each tortilla and spread it around. Toss together mozzarella, mushrooms, red pepper, spinach, and onion. HINT: Sometimes I cook and chop all the veg and put them in a bag in the freezer to save time on a FAST day. Divide the mixture among the tortillas and bake for 5-10 mins at 400.

Red Beans & Rice: 295 calories 1.2 g. fat 13 g. protein 57.5 g. carb PB GF This is the old classic recipe for the ‘perfect protein’. Once we were afraid that we wouldn’t like it, since it sounds bland, but we do like it. Yeah, you’re right, the carbs are way out of control, but these complex carbs are really good. HINT: This is enough for 4 servings! Either have a gathering or cut the recipe or freeze for later.
1 and 3/4 cups brown rice, cooked ½ cup celery, chopped ½ cup sweet yellow or other color pepper, diced 1 cup onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced ¾ cup crushed tomato oregano black pepper 1 and 3/4 cups red beans, drained and rinsed [Goya brand is very good] ½ cup green beans or peas
Cook the rice. Saute the celery, pepper, and onions for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 5 minutes more. Add the tomato sauce and seasonings. Stir in the red beans and heat through. When the rice is done, add 1 and 3/4 cups to the mixture. HINT: if there is extra rice, it freezes well. Serve with the cooked green vegetable.

If anything it’s easier ronit! Vegan food is naturally lower in calories, so you can eat loads even on a fast day. I’ve been doing it two weeks as a vegan and lost 6 lbs. My fast day meals tend to be huge stir fries or curries.

Choose unprocessed foods and youll do just fine. Im not sure if I would agree with the statement vegan foods are naturally lower in calories. Sugar, alcohol, wheat products are all vegan. Are they low in calories? They are calorie dense and low on nutrition. Just because a food is vegan doesn’t mean its not a crap food.

Joel has come up with his own index. Im not sure its been clinically proven. Its just his interpretation of what he considers important. Having said that I generally agree with what he says. At least his message sort of makes sense compared to McDougall.

Another good resource for vegan diets is: http://www.vegsource.com There are a lot of links there, including some videos about Vitamin B12. There’s also a video about growing up Vegan. I watched the twin daughters of the websites owners growing up via videos on the website. These are two women, now in their early 20’s who have never eaten animal products. They also have several YouTube videos.

I’m not vegan at present, but I have gone as long as a year on a strict vegan diet and many of our meals at home are vegan. I went back to eating animal products, mainly fish and some eggs and cheese because it was often difficult eating out on business trips and lunches. It would likely be easier now since restaurants seem to offer more choices.

I don’t see any problem at all combining a vegan diet with 5:2. In fact, I may go back to it for a while.